For My Lady's Heart (31 page)

“On guard!” she whispered. “Thou moste not let thyself sleep, or they
shall have thee!”

He took a deep breath, gripping the pommel of his sword. “Whosome shall
haf me?” he asked in a bewildered tone.

She shook him again, until his armor rattled. “The fays,” she said. “If
they have thee not already. Didst thou hear the tune?”

He seemed to come a little into his wits. “You heard music?” His hand
loosed the sword. “What melody?”

“I know not. Fairy music, sweet and slow.”

He grunted, looking to the left and right into the mist. Then, to her
dismay, he idly began to whistle the selfsame air. Hawk’s ears pricked, and
his pace increased.

As the mist thinned, the distant flute took up his tune again. The path
dropped below the fits of the wind, into a calm that seemed warm after the
driving chill of the vapor. The fluting music seemed to always recede before
them, never closer, never farther. She did not know if it was some
prearranged signal, or if the fay folk themselves put the whistle in his
head and gave the weary horse a new energy to stride forward. It was such a
mournful and familiar tune ...

The memory of where she had heard it came to her. Aboard ship, leaving
Bourdeaux—with the man who rode before her now upon the deck above.

In one fell moment her mind flew over the impossible sequence of events
that had brought her here, and she thought that he was bewitched, that his
purpose was always to draw her into the fairies’ power, to this place where
they ruled.

Part of her thought it folly, and part of her feared, and part of her
felt a strange excitement, a keenness to behold such as she had only read
and heard about.

He ceased his whistle suddenly, halted the horse, and thrust his fist in
the air.
“Aver!
”
he shouted in a voice that reverberated off
every wall of the valley.

A horn answered, a trumpet’s call. The note held and climbed, blending
with echoes of itself, until it seemed a whole company of horns.

He touched his heels to the horse, and the stallion seemed to forget
fatigue. It rocked into a canter down the last of the slope, thundering
across a bridge and frozen river that appeared beneath them before Melanthe
half knew they were there. There was a road before them now, well-trod,
following the bank and skirting the base of a rock-strewn ridge.

They passed the descending claw of slate, and the view burst open beside
them. A whole valley spread below, thrice again as wide as the one they
left, broad and level with tilled fields striped by snow, a palisaded park,
a lake. And at the head of it the castle, shimmering white, its walls
plummeting deep into the water, its garrets iced by traceries, lacy delights
cut in stone, as intricate as paper fantasies.

The trumpet called again, loud and close, this time a dizzying cascade of
proclamation. It broke off suddenly, and Melanthe looked to the left. Beside
the road stood a brightly dressed youth with a big mastiff, both grinning,
the boy’s arms uplifted as if he would leap upon the horse as it galloped
by.

The expression upon this young jester’s face when he saw Melanthe was
near as surprised as hers. He wore the gear of a court fool, parti-colored
hose, bells, and rich flutters of fabric on his sleeves and doublet, and a
cap decked with feathers and trailing dags. As Ruck pulled up beside him,
the young man lowered his horn with a comic look of dismay.

“Who is she?” he demanded, full as if he had the right.

“Well come to thee also, Desmond,” Ruck said dryly.

Young Desmond instantly dropped to his knee. He bowed his head so low
that he was in danger of toppling over. “My lord,” he said in a muffled
voice. “Welcome.”

Hawk threw his head, as if impatient with this delay, but Ruck held him.
“My lady, this is Desmond, porter to the castel. Be his task to see that no
strangers enter Wolfscar withouten leave—I ne haf no doubt that is the
reason he demanded your name with such diligence.”

“I beg pardon, my lord,” Desmond said miserably from his prostration.
“Beg pardon, my lady.”

“Go before us,” Ruck said, “and tell them that I come with my wife, the
Princess Melanthe of Monteverde and Bowland.”

Desmond stood up. He held the horn beneath his arm, his head lowered, but
he managed one good long slanted look at her. She saw mostly a prominent
nose and a complexion red from cold or horn-blowing; his expression was
still hidden.

“M’lord,” he said, bobbing. “M’lady.”

He turned and ran ahead with a youth’s energy in the speed of his piked
shoes, his dog loping alongside. The road bent right, into the valley. He
stopped at the turning and lifted the horn, playing his quick-noted
exhortation, sending it blaring across the land with zealous vigor.

“That,” Melanthe said, “be no fairy.”

Ruck glanced over his shoulder. “Nay, he is a minstrel. Didst thou prefer
a fay welcome?”

“Depardeu, a few moments since, I thought me married to Tam Lin himself.”

He laughed aloud, the second time she had heard that fine sound. “Yea,
thou shook me till my teeth rattled!”

“And well thou didst deserve it,” she said stoutly. “Now take me to thy
fairy castel, for I be right weary of this horse.”

Fairy they might not be, but a strange company and a strange castle it
was. As they drew nearer the hold, Melanthe saw why it had seemed so like a
frozen waterfall from a distance. While the tracery-work in stone gave the
sparkling towers and chimneys an aspect of light froth, the lime-wash on the
walls had not been maintained. Long streamers of dark stone showed through
the white wherever water flowed off the blue roofs and out of the gutters.
The whole keep gave the ghostly effect of melting like a sugar castle at a
banquet.

And the household—every man, woman, and child was dressed as if he
belonged in a mummery play, from the spiked poulaines on their feet to the
lavish colors and designs of their clothes. They came running to line the
road, most all with an instrument, from nakryn drums to little harps to
bells, and as Melanthe and Ruck rode between them, they sang a gay chorus
with treble and countertenor as well executed as if they had practiced it
for weeks. Those that did not sing went before the horse, tumbling and
leaping and juggling—there were even women and girls among the acrobats,
wearing men’s hose and springing as high as the others—and a pair of little
terriers that walked upright backward, performing flips and yapping.

Melanthe saw no peasants, no tools or evidence of winter toil, though
there were gray sheep with white faces scattered in the pasture about the
lake. “Where are thy people?” she whispered, beneath the song and music.

He opened his hand, indicating the lively troop. “These they are, who
brought me up.”

“These minstrels?”

He nodded, leaning down to accept a braided sheaf of wheat from a little
girl who marched alongside the destrier and then pelted away, her caroling
full of giggles.

Melanthe looked about her at the singing company. “Better than raised by
wolves, I trow,” she murmured.

They had come to the outer barbican. Before the gatehouse, at the base of
the gangway, a portly fellow with a great white beard stood waiting,
dignified and comic in his tight hose and barrel body clothed in rainbow
hues. His companion had a smarter aspect, a man with a young face and old
brown eyes, calm and intelligent, geared all in blue but for a white pointed
collar and a silver belt.

As the younger man stepped forward, the music fell to silence. “Your
Highness,” he said, with a deep and perfect bow, “all honor is yours. May
the King on High bless you, and our dear lord esteem and cherish you. I am
William the Foolet, and this be William Bassinger. Do we give your lady’s
grace great welcome to our master’s house and hold.”

He held out a ring of keys to Melanthe. Looking down into his soft-lashed
dark eyes, she thought him no fool, little or otherwise. She accepted the
keys and nodded to him and to Bassinger. “Grant you mercy, trusty and
well-beloved.” she said clearly, for all to hear. “May Christ you foryield,
and give all in this castel good chance.”

Plump Bassinger swept a deep flourish. “The gates!” he declared in a
voice that rolled across the lake like ripe thunder. “Our liege lord and
lady come!”

Unseen hands bore open the portcullis and brought down the bridge. As
Ruck and Melanthe rode through the echoing stone passage, handfuls of wheat
kernels rained down from the murder holes in the ceiling. Their motley
household followed, singing and cheering.

Crossing the moat, Melanthe glanced up from the bridge to the towering
wall. Above the inner gate was carved the device of a wolf’s head, painted
black on a field of azure, the colors a fresh contrast, bright against the
fading white. Inside the walls the intricate lace of stonework and decay
seemed stranger still. A neat garden plot occupied the center of the court,
but leafless woodbine climbed and covered half the arches of a sagging
wooden gallery, the last vestiges of its painted ornament almost lost to the
weather. Several cattle munched on hay strewn in the dry well of a fountain,
oblivious to elegant slender chimneys and the beautiful windows, delicate
with traceries and glass, that soared above.

Ruck dismounted and helped her down. A pair of boys seized his sword and
shield, bearing them off with the destrier. He seemed reluctant to meet her
eyes, standing in his green-tinged armor amid this elvish ruin that was no
ruin, a donjon that should have held ten times the folk she saw, that was
too lately raised, too lovingly fashioned, to be forsaken to neglect and
decline.

William Bassinger gestured, and the arched door to the great hall was
opened for her, the minstrels forming a path as a harper struck up a lively
cascade of notes. Ruck took her hand. Carrying Gryngolet, Melanthe stepped
with him up the stairs, the icy crunch of their feet obscured by music fit
for sprightly angels.

It followed them inside, past the fine screens, into the hall where the
liquid sun shone down through mosaic glass from five huge windows. All
defense was left to the outer wall; the inner was a splendor of airy light
that glowed on plaster and tapestry, touched gilt and varnished beams,
illumined long cobwebs that trailed from the ceiling. The excellent
tapestries stretched and gathered dust in their folds, and the ones lit by
the windows were losing their brighter hues already.

But a fire blazed in the big hearth, with benches and stools gathered
round it, discarded work, piles of brilliant cloths, and unstrung musical
instruments, here and there a sign of more mundane effort, such as a harness
in repair. In the rest of the hall the trestles were stacked against walls.

Ruck lifted her hand, guiding her to the steps onto the dais. He looked
over the gathering, the upturned faces of haps fifty people, near half of
them no more than children, the whole dressed in color and caprice. The harp
music lent a sweet air of fantasy, the dust made all hues softer, and
Melanthe wondered if she had wed Tarn Lin in truth, for everything seemed
only incompletely real.

He waited until the music drew to a conclusion, as if it held precedence.
And yet his waiting gave him greater attention than any seneschal bawling
for quiet. In the new silence he spoke quietly, and yet with a voice that
came back in soft echoes from the hall.

“Your Highness,” he said to her, “my lady, my dear consort and friend,
accustomed be ye to greater, deserve ye greater, but this is my hold, and my
people. For what love you may bear me, I ask of you to keepen them in your
heart as I do. And them I ask and require likewise to love you, and holden
you in fear and respect, and I give you power over them all, to ordain and
arrangen according to such as you shall see best to do. Nill I name them to
you now, for our journey has been long and weary.” He had spoken to a point
somewhere below her chin, still avoiding her, but he lifted his eyes then
and met hers. “I say you, on my life and soul, that ye are safe here, where
no ill can finden you, for so long as ye wish to remain.”

She held his hand, and made a small reverence toward him. “In these
matters, husband, do I willingly and gladly obey thee.”

His green eyes narrowed in a brief smile, abashed and mocking at once,
taking full note of her reservation, that she did not promise to submit in
all things, but only in these. He looked again over the hall.

“Plague comes yet once more to the world beyond the frith, so therefore
do I decree for the common good that none shall venture out anon. Pierre
Brokeback is dead, though nought by pestilence, may God preserve and defend
him, and give his soul rest. And yet moreover my wife the Lady Isabelle,
whom, God pardon, returned—after the spirit to Heaven whence she came, these
thirteen years. I—” He seemed to lose the tail of his words and said
abruptly, “I am shend in weariness, and my lady, also. We will speak of
these things hereafterward.”

He let go of Melanthe, and in his turning she saw indeed that he was like
to fall asleep on his feet.
“Avaunt!”
she exclaimed, beckoning to
the nearest of the dumbfounded household. “Dispoil thy lord of his armor,
and offer comfort. Ye knowen not how far he has carried me these two nights
and day again.”

In the chamber of the lord of Wolfscar, cushions lay on the floor, and
carpets, too, the height of sumptuous luxury. The bed was made in
ermine-lined coverlets and hung with embroidered silk on red cords and
golden rings. The place smelled of old smoke and damp.

Melanthe’s first notion was to chastise and justle, demanding whether
these acrobatic women could not find the time amid their tumbles to air the
bedding, but both William the Foolet and Ruck were looking at her
doubtfully, like two boys caught neglecting their studies by a severe
master. Ruck, divested of his armor, went past her to the windows, leaning
with his knee on the deep sills to open each latticed glass pane. Fresh air
poured in from the courtyard, cold and carrying a faint scent of livestock.